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Christelle Kedi: Afropolitanism and
the Black Blogosphere
AFROTREND
Christelle Kedi is an award-winning makeup artist (GLE One London, Rising Star 2008 and Women4Africa, Make-up Artist of the Year 2012) nominated to the BEFFTA Awards (Black Entertainment Film Fashion television and Arts Award). A beauty historian, she was born and raised in Paris, before moving to London where she opened a firm specializing in make-up and fashion in 2007.
Christelle Kedi holds a diploma in make-up and body art for performances, a Bachelor of Arts in Beauty Salon Management and a Master's Degree of Arts in Fashion imaging and Promotion. Mastering French and English perfectly, she has worked with several magazines including National Geographic Green, The Voice, Scarf and New African Woman to name a few. She has also collaborated with the Royal African Society, Fashion Works, London Fashion Week, Afro Hair Show 2012, Boucles d’Ebène, and the exhibition on the origins of the Afro Hair Comb at the University of Cambridge.Her first book "Beautifying the Body in Ancient Africa and
Today" was published in 2013 by Books of Africa. A historical journey , and identity authenticity through the African sense of beauty and its secular secrets.
Her second book, Afropolitanism and the Black Blogosphere (2016, Books of Africa) is a selection of 21 case studies of Black bloggers, in beauty, fashion and lifestyle in 9 European countries.
Christelle Kedi is the guest of our fashion page this month in the following lines she tells us more about her new book.
Hello christelle we are happy to have you as guest this month
Hi thanks for receiving me ....
If in your first book you have more explored the customs and traditions of African beauty from Antiquity to the present days, this second work is more scientific, critical and right in its era. What did you want to achieve with Afropolitanism and the black blogosphere?
The objective was to propose a book that to my unpleasant surprise did not exist in 2014 when I read 25 books on blogging, and I could only list 3 black bloggers on thousands of blogs featured. 2 Afro-Americans and another by a former male model Afro French and gay ... we had to make black bloggers exist outside the virtual world, to perpetrate and record the history of our practices in communication, fashion and life style.
And why did you think it was necessary to talk about the black blogosphere?
The black blogosphere is particularly developed compared to the black press and other community media. It is not, however, professionally speaking, a fact of trained journalists or investigators. It is an additional and popular platform of expression that offers the advantage of being anonymous, and